Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City where he studied architecture and practiced. He was awarded an M.A. and a Ph.D. by the University of Essex (England).  He has taught at London’s Architectural Association and at universities in Mexico, the US and Canada. In 1983 he became Director of Carleton University’s School of Architecture and in 1987 was appointed Bronfman Professor of Architectural History at McGill University in Montreal, where he founded the History and Theory Post-Professional (Master’s and Doctoral) Programs. He became Emeritus Professor in January, 2020.

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Alberto Pérez-Gómez’s research interests revolve around phenomenology, enactive cognitive science and hermeneutics in architecture. He continues to publish extensively in periodicals and chapters of books. A collection of his essays in two volumes titled Timely Meditations (RightAngle Intl.) was published in 2016. Over 25 years he edited with Stephen Parcell the collection in seven volumes titled CHORA: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, including a total of 87 essays by 78 authors. His main books are still in print: Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) diagnosed the limitations of functionalist (instrumental) and formalist approaches in architecture; Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited (1992) written in the form of an erotic tale, explored the emotional and cognitive dimensions of architectural space; Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (1997), traced the history and theory of modern European architectural representation, locating the origins of contemporary instrumental techniques long before the so-called digital turn. Built upon Love (2006) examined points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural history and philosophy, drawing conclusions for contemporary practice. His latest book, Attunement, Architectural Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science (2016) examines the issue of atmosphere and its relationship to traditional concepts of place, harmony and stimmung, leading to an enquiry on the importance of narrative language in the generation of significant architecture.

Álvaro Siza is one of the most distinguished and highly awarded architects in the world. He works in Porto, Portugal. "Every design," says Siza, "is a rigorous attempt to capture a concrete moment of a transitory image in all its nuances. The extent to which this transitory quality is captured, is reflected in the designs: the more precise they are, the more vulnerable."

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Siza, whose full name is Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira, was born on June 25, 1933 in the small coastal town of Matosinhos, just north of Porto, Portugal. Siza studied at the University of Porto School of Architecture from 1949 through 1955, completing his first built works (four houses in Matosinhos) even before ending his studies in 1954.

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In 1966, Siza began teaching at the University, and in 1976, he was made a tenured Professor of Architecture. In addition to his teaching there, he has been a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the University of Pennsylvania; Los Andes University of Bogota; and the Ecole Polytechnique of Lausanne. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer at many universities and conferences throughout the world, from the United States, Colombia and Argentina to Spain, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and England in Europe.

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He received the Pritzker Prize in 1992. He also received honors from foundations and institutions in Europe, including the Alvar Aalto Foundation Gold Medal in 1988, the renowned Mies van der Rohe Foundation Award the Borges & Irmao Bank in Vila do Conde, Portugal (1982-86) and many others.

Andrea Chiba is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Science and in the Program for Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Chiba earned her bachelor’s from the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught high school math. She earned her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Utah. She is Co-Director and the founding Science Director of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center, an NSF Science of Learning Center. The Center research is focused on the importance of time and timing in various aspects of learning, from the level of the synapse to social interactions. Chiba is involved in many Center projects that allow cross-species comparisons of learning and memory, bridging from rodent to human. 

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Dr. Chiba’s Laboratory is focused on gaining an understanding of the neural systems and principles underlying aspects of learning, memory, affect, and attention, with an emphasis on neural plasticity. Work in her laboratory is highly interdisciplinary, using a variety of neurobiological, neurochemical, neurophysiology, computational, robotic, and behavioral techniques.

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Dr. Chiba has authored dozens of papers and other publications and has organized and participated in international workshops to help educators and policy-makers understand how the science of learning provides a strong foundation for educational excellence.

Andrea Pinotti is professor in Aesthetics in the department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti”, Università di Milano. His research focuses on image theories and visual culture studies, virtual and augmented reality, memorialisation and monumentality, empathy theories, and the morphological tradition from Goethe to the present day. He has been fellow of various international institutions, including the Italian Academy at Columbia University, the Warburg Institute in London, the ZFL in Berlin, the IEA and the FMSH in Paris. Among his publications the volumes Il corpo dello stile. Storia dell’arte come storia dell’estetica a partire da Semper, Riegl, Wölfflin (1998), Memorie del neutro. Morfologia dell’immagine in Aby Warburg(2001), Empathie. Histoire d’une idée de Platon au post-humain (2016), Cultura visuale. Immagini sguardi media dispositivi (in collaboration with Antonio Somaini, 2016). In 2018, he was awarded the Wissenschaftspreis der Aby-Warburg-Stiftung in Hamburg. He is currently directing an ERC-Advanced project entitled An-iconology. History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images (2019-24).

Cleo Valentine is a systems designer, neuroarchitectural researcher and doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, Department of Architecture. Her research investigates the impact of visual exposure to selected architectural forms on neuroinflammatory responses. In doing so, this research aims to establish the field of architectural neuroimmunology and to support the creation of a healthier built environment. Cleo received her MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies from the University of Cambridge, before which she earned her MSc in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford and received her Bachelor’s in Urban Systems and Economics from McGill University and the University of Copenhagen. She has worked as a computational systems designer at Open Systems Lab (formerly Wikihouse) and has held positions as the Neuroaesthetics Fellow at The Centre for Conscious Design and as a guest tutor at the Royal College of Art and the Architecture Association in London. She is currently an associate at Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd. where she provides consultancy services on public health and architecture.

David Kirsh is professor & past chair at the Cognitive Science Department, University of California San Diego. During 2017-2019 he was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture University College London where he continues part-time. He is currently President of ANFA. He received a D. Phil. From Oxford Univ in Philosophy & Cognitive Science, did post-doctoral work in Artificial Intelligence at MIT (AI Lab), and held Research or Visiting Professor positions at: MIT - Comp Sci, Stanford Univeristy - Grad School of Education, Comp Sci, Music upcoming, Univ College London - Comp Sci, Architecture, Paris University - Sociology, Comp Sci, Adjunct Prof in Dance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London. 

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He has written extensively on situated cognition, especially on how the environment can be shaped to simplify and extend cognition, including how we intelligently use space, and how we use external representations as an interactive tool for thought. He runs the Interactive Cognition Lab at UCSD where the focus is on the way humans are closely coupled to the outside world, and how human environments have been adapted to enable us cope with the complexity of everyday life. Some recent projects focus on ways humans use their bodies as things to think with, specifically in dance making, how thought unfolds in many modalities, and how new media tools are reshaping thought, especially in the different stages of design. He is currently working on a new theory of interaction and visual reasoning.

Davide Ruzzon is an Architect, Director, and Scientific Responsible for TUNED, a Lombardini22's branch in Milan. He is working on applying the knowledge from neuroscience to the design of private and public buildings in open urban spaces. He is also the NAAD Founder and Director. Arrived at its fourth edition, ‘Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design’ is an annual Postgraduate Course at the IUAV University of Venice. This Course involves professionals, scholars, young architects, scientists, and psychologists from all over the world, in an interdisciplinary path toward an evidence-based design, able to merge science and architecture, well beyond the divide between biology and culture.

Davide is the Director, and Co-Founder, with Sarah Robinson and Alessandro Gattara, of the new architecture magazine Intertwining, now on its third issue.  He wrote books and papers, edited collections of essays, and organized seminars and conferences. He also has built public and private buildings and has taken part in International Design. His last book 'Tuning Architecture With Humans' will be on the shelves for the incoming July 2022. 

Edoardo Milesi studied at the IUAV University of Venice and graduated in 1979 from the Polytechnic University of Milan with Franca Helg. Expert in landscape and environmental protection, he has achieved numerous specializations including architectural ecology, religious architecture and garden art.

In 1990, he founded Archos studio, with which he carries out design activities spanning different areas and sizes, and which is characterized by constant research into environmental, social and construction aspects of architecture. In addition to his professional practice, he constantly participates in cultural debate about contemporary architecture and is interested in disseminating and discussing his own experiments. In 2008 he founded the magazine ArtApp, of which he is editor-in-chief. Since June 2009, he has been president of the cultural committee of the Bertarelli Social and Cultural Foundation. In 2014, he founded the cultural association Scuola Permanente dell’Abitare (Permanent School of Living).

From april 2019 to april 2022 he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Fabbriceria del Duomo of Siena, called “Opera della Metropolitana”. He is an active member of the University of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Bergamo and from 2020 he is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Coastal Landscape Observatory of Legambiente. Since 2021 he has been President of the Discipline Board 5 of the Order of PPC Architects of Bergamo; President of the Landscape Commission of the Municipality of Mozzo and a member of the Europan Jury.

Elisabetta Canepa (MS.Eng., Ph.D.) is an architect and researcher from Genoa, Italy. She is currently an EU Marie Curie Fellow running the RESONANCES project (2021–2024) in collaboration with the University of Genoa, Kansas State University, and Aalborg University. Her research focuses on the hybrid connection between architecture and cognitive neuroscience, analyzing topics such as atmospheric dynamics, the emotional nature of the architectural experience, embodiment theory, the empathic phenomenon between humans and space, and experimentation in virtual reality. Dr. Canepa is an Advisory Council member of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), based in San Diego, California. She is a faculty member in the Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design (NAAD) Master’s Program at the Iuav University of Venice and serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Architecture Department at Kansas State University. Elisabetta Canepa wrote Architecture is
Atmosphere: Notes on Empathy, Emotions, Body, Brain, and Space (2022), published by Mimesis International. She is a member of the scientific board of the Interfaces book series (New Prairie Press), investigating the interplay of design, philosophy, and biology through the lens of meaning in architecture.

Dr. Francesca Ferroni is an accomplished neurobiologist currently affiliated with the University of Parma, Italy. She undertakes research in intricate areas such as the bodily self, schizophrenia, multisensory integration, and peripersonal space. Dr.Ferroni is recognized for her significant contributions to Cognitive Neuroscience and Neurobiology. In her current role as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Parma, Dr. Ferroni's insightful work has garnered global recognition, evidenced by over 285 citations in scholarly publications. This points to the far-reaching impact and ongoing relevance of her research within the scientific community. Dr. Ferroni has an extensive portfolio of 15 scholarly publications, a testament to her profound understanding of her field and her consistent commitment to furthering knowledge within it. These works provide a comprehensive overview of her academic exploration, reaffirming her position as a key contributor to the field of neurobiology.

Guido Pietropoli was born in Rovigo (Italy) in 1945 and graduated from IUAV in 1970 with Carlo Scarpa, with whom he collaborated until 1978, the year of the architect’s death in Sendai (Japan).
In those years he has collaborated on the following projects: Tomba Brion in San Vito di Altivole, monumental organ for the Basilica dei Frari in Venice, Banca Popolare and Villa Il Palazzetto in Monselice, restoration and portal of the former Convent of San Sebastiano, seat of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice, staging of Scarpa's personal exhibition at the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects in London ) and at the Domus Comestabilis in Vicenza, Country Club in Vicenza and other. After Scarpa’s death the Studio Pietropoli has completed the construction of Villa Ottolenghi in Bardolino near Verona.

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Studio Pietropoli has carried out the design of residential buildings, urban redesign, restoration of historic factories and paleo-industrial architectures and industrial design products. He collaborated with the Japanese company YKK which designed components for residential construction.

Guido Pietropoli taught at the IUAV, the Faculty of Architecture in Bologna (Cesena branch) and lectured at the following italian and foreign museums and institutions: Museo MAXXI in Rome, Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, Politecnico di Milano, Fondazione Benetton Studi e Ricerche in Treviso, MAK in Wien, Soane’s Museum in London, the Watari-um in Tokyo, University of Tennessee, Irvin Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union in NYC.

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He recently took care of the Brion Memorial whose restoration engaged him from 2013 to 2021.

He wrote numerous essays on Carlo Scarpa and recently published two books on his experience with the Venetian master entitled: «Alongside Carlo Scarpa" and "Carlo Scarpa 1968/1978 - Almost a tale".
He is currently working on a book of drawings by Carlo Scarpa for the Brion Memorial in which about 330 drawings (selected from the 2,200 kept at the MAXXI in Rome) will be published in chronological order and commented in order to reconstruct the "creative confession" of the architect.
 

Juhani Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect, professor of architecture and former dean at the Helsinki University of Technology. Pallasmaa has written and lectured extensively across the world for over 45 years on architecture, the visual arts, environmental phenomenology, and cultural philosophy. 

Among the many academic and civic positions he has held are those of Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture and head of the Institute of Industrial Arts, Helsinki. He established his own architect's office in 1983 in Helsinki. He has taught architecture at many universities around the world, including the Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin School. Pallasmaa has lectured widely in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia.

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Among Pallasmaa's many books on architectural theory is The Eyes of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses, a book that has become a classic of architectural theory and is required reading in many schools of architecture around the world. A selection of essays written by Pallasmaa, from the early years to more recent ones, has been translated into English and collated together in the book Encounters – Architectural Essays, edited by Peter MacKeith. Pallasmaa is the former Chair of the Pritzker Prize Committee. He is a member of the Finnish Association of Architects and an honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Renato Bocchi, full professor of architectural and urban design at the Iuav University of Venice until 2019 and director of the Department of architectural design from 2006 to 2009. He is currently a member of the Doctorate Schools at Iuav, Venice, and Sapienza University, Rome. He held seminars, workshops, and conferences in many European universities and was a visiting professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, in 2005 and 2011.

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The main field of his research is the relationship between architecture, art, and landscape. On these topics, he coordinated (with Cunico and Fontanari) the series of eight international conferences, "Dessiner sur l'herbe," between 2004 and 2012. 

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He was responsible for cultural initiatives between Iuav University and the Venetian museums and cultural institutions, including the program "Salotto Longhena"  with Muve in Ca’ Pesaro Art Museum. He was the editor of some architectural magazines in Italy and the national coordinator of the large research programme "Re-cycle Italy" between 2013 and 2016.

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His numerous publications include: La materia del vuoto, Universalia, Pordenone, 2015, and Spazio, arte, architettura, Carocci, Rome 2022.

Sarah Robinson is an architect, writer and educator whose practice is based in Pavia, Italy. Her writing and research is concerned with the many ways that the built environment shapes body, mind and culture. Her books, Nesting: Body, Dwelling Mind (William Stout, 2011), Mind in Architecture: Neuroscience, Embodiment and the Future of Design with Juhani Pallasmaa (MIT, 2015) and Architecture is a Verb, (Routledge, 2021) are among the first works to engage the dialogue between architecture and the cognitive sciences. She wrote and produced the documentary short film titled, "What Design Can Do" together with Sarah Williams Goldhagen.

Holding degrees in both philosophy and architecture, she was the founding President of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture board of governors.

She is Adjunct Professor in Architecture, Design and Media Technology at Aalborg University, Denmark, and she is a member of the scientific board of NAAD at IUAV, Venice. 

Sarah Williams Goldhagen, PhD. (Columbia University) and former Harvard professor, writes, lectures, and consults for a wide range of public and private clients on human centered design for the built environment. She wrote and produced the documentary short film titled, "What Design Can Do" together with Sarah Robinson. Her Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives (HarperCollins; also published in Chinese, Russian, and Korean) won a Nautilus Book Award in 2017 for its contribution to social and environmental justice, and Goldhagen was an opening-night Spotlight speaker at the AIA National Convention that same year.

A frequent keynote speaker, Goldhagen has won numerous awards and grants (including three from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts) for her writing on modern and contemporary architecture and landscapes and their psychological and cognitive effects on people. She has published several opinion pieces in the New York Times, served as Contributing Editor for Art in America and Architectural Record, and was the New Republic’s architecture critic for nearly a decade. Goldhagen also has had a distinguished academic career with scholarly publications that include Louis Kahn’s Situated Modernism (Yale University) and Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture (co-edited with Réjean Legault, MIT Press) as well as numerous essays and reviews in premier architecture- and art-historical journals.

Currently she works in New York City, collaborates with the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) as a Board Member, and advises various clients on strategies for promoting and implementing human centered design.

Satchidananda (Satchin) Panda, PhD is a professor at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, where his research focuses on the circadian regulation of behavior, physiology, and metabolism in model organisms and in humans. He discovered a blue-light sensing cell type in the retina that entrains our master circadian clock, affects mood, and regulates the production of the sleep hormone melatonin.

Recently he discovered that maintaining a daily feeding-fasting cycle – popularly known as Time-restricted feeding (TRF) – can prevent and reverse metabolic diseases. Based on a feasibility study in humans, his lab is currently carrying out a smartphone-based study (www.mycircadianclock.org) to assess the extent of circadian disruption among adults.

Tatiana Berger (M.Arch, Princeton University, B.A. in Arch., UC Berkeley) is an architect, urban designer and educator. She has worked for over 35 years in the U.S., Portugal, Spain and Austria. Her built works, collaborations and community plans were published in international periodicals and presented in exhibitions in Europe and U.S.  Berger worked with Richard Meier in New York,  was Director of the Sochi Olympics 2014 project for ILF Engineers and project architect for Baumschlager-Eberle in Bregenz, Austria. From 1997-2004 she worked as project architect and manager in the office of Alvaro Siza in Porto. Berger's built work, designed in collaboration with architects named above, is found in Porto, Lisbon and Viana do Castelo in Portugal, and also in Austria, the Netherlands, China, Russia and the U.S. In addition to architecture, her experience in professional practice includes landscape design and urban planning, furniture/product design, and construction administration.     ​

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Berger is Founder of Moving Boundaries Collaborative, which provides educational services and design/consulting services. She is guest lecturer at NAAD in Venice, ETH Zurich, NeuroArq Brazil, NAD Chile, and Artclever. She was Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design in San Diego and Professor of Architecture at the Boston Architectural College. A member of the Advisory Council of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), she developed a new curriculum in architectural theory and studio with a focus on ANFA themes as faculty in the pioneering Neuroscience for Architecture Program at NewSchool. In her role as curator of lecture series and symposia, she leads the ANFA Center for Education (ACE), an international forum for educators dedicated to reimagining design education. ​

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​She is co-founder of the Compostela Institute, a laboratory for research and education in environmental design, providing courses and workshops since 2010 in anthropology, cultural studies and building crafts in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She has lectured internationally on topics in architectural theory, urbanism and health, regionalism, and transdisciplinary design education. She is increasingly involved in research in dynamic sensory experience of the built environment informed by knowledge from the human sciences. 

Dr. Thomas D. Albright is Professor and Conrad T. Prebys Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he is Director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Vision and Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego. He specializes in the neural basis of visual perception, memory and visually guided behavior.

He seeks to understand how visual perception is affected by attention, behavioral goals, and memories of previous experiences. An important goal of this work is the development of therapies for blindness and perceptual impairments resulting from disease, trauma or developmental disorders of the brain. A second aim of his work is to use our growing knowledge of brain, perception and memory to inform design in architecture and the arts, and to leverage societal decisions and public policy.

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He received a Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an associate of the Neuroscience Research Program. He is past-president of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (2012-2014), a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science, Technology, and Law, and a member of the U.S. National Commission on Forensic Science.

Tim Ingold is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen.
Following 25 years at the University of Manchester, where he was appointed Max Gluckman
Professor of Social Anthropology in 1995, Ingold moved in 1999 to Aberdeen, where he
established Scotland’s youngest Department of Anthropology. Ingold has carried out
ethnographic fieldwork among Sámi and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on
comparative questions of environment, technology and social organisation in the
circumpolar North, the role of animals in human society, issues in human ecology, and
evolutionary theory in anthropology, biology and history. He has gone on to explore the
links between environmental perception and skilled practice, replacing traditional models of
genetic and cultural transmission with a relational approach focusing on the growth of
bodily skills of perception and action. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between
anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His recent books include The Perception of
the Environment (2000), Lines (2007), Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines
(2015), Anthropology and/as Education (2018), Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018),
Correspondences (2020) and Imagining for Real (2022). His next book, The Rise and Fall of
Generation Now, will be published by Polity Press in 2023. Ingold is a Fellow of the British
Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2022 he was made a CBE for services to
Anthropology.

Vittorio Gallese, MD, studied medicine at the University of Parma, Parma, Italy, and was awarded a degree in Neurology in 1990. He is a Full Professor of Psychobiology Dept. of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma, Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study of the University of London, UK and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Dept. of Art History and Archeology, Columbia University, New York, USA. He is coordinator of the PhD Program in Neuroscience and Director of the Doctoral School of Medicine of the University of Parma. As a cognitive neuroscientist, his research focuses on the relationship between the sensory-motor system and cognition, both in non-human primates and humans using a variety of neurophysiological and functional neuroimaging techniques applied to the study of intersubjectivity, empathy, language, mindreading and aesthetics. Among his major contributions is the discovery, together with the colleagues of Parma, of mirror neurons, and the elaboration of a theoretical model of basic aspects of social cognition, Embodied Simulation Theory. 

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Gallese has done research at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, at the Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan, at the University of California at Berkeley and at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain of the Humboldt University of Berlin. He has been George Miller visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley. In 2007 he received together with Giacomo Rizzolatti and Leonardo Fogassi the Grawemeyer Award for Psychology, for the discovery of mirror neurons. He received the Doctor Honoris Causa from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 2009. He received the Arnold Pfeffer Prize for Neuropsychoanalysis from the International Society of Neuropsychoanalysis, New York, U.S.A in 2010, the Musatti Prize from the Italian Psychoanalytic Society in 2013, the Kosmos Fellowship from the Berlin School of Mind and Brain in 2014, the Einstein Fellowship for 2016-2020, and the Alexander von Humboldt Forschung Preis in 2019. Gallese has published over 300 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and edited books and three books.